Gold Rallies, Indexes Catch Their Breath

Right now the S&P 500 is down 0.15% at 7,711.96 and the Nasdaq's off a slim 0.05% at 26,349.00 — with an hour and fifty minutes left to the close, this session just feels like it's pausing to catch its breath. Hopes that the Strait of Hormuz reopens are cooling inflation worries, which sent gold to a seven-week high, and with the dollar index slipping 0.2%, money's clearly rotating toward gold and AI names. Chip stocks have stopped bleeding, but foreign money hasn't come back yet, so utilities and energy are dragging, and that's what's clipping the Nasdaq's upside. Stack that against yesterday's Kospi, which closed down a brutal 4.58%, and today's US session looks downright calm by comparison. My book's still smiling with Microsoft +25.8%, Nvidia +5.8%, and Freeport-McMoRan +9.6%, while Amazon's the lone straggler at -5.0%; between now and the close I'm watching whether this gold-and-AI strength holds up and whether foreign flows actually come back to chips.